


Follow the Cat

by espressoempress



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cat Puns, First Kiss, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, POV First Person, Reluctant domesticity, Romance, Slow Burn, Swearing, also bedelia's dead, but not like a creepy romance, hannibal is a terrible roommate, hannibal is a werecat, i was bored one day and decided "hey what if hannibal was a cat", im not kidding, like seriously hannibal is a cat, pretentious metaphors about dante and narcissus, probable smut, quirky, so I wrote it, sorry mom, this is a fun quirky thing, whoops, will swears a lot in his head
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espressoempress/pseuds/espressoempress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will adopts a stray cat, and things are fine for approximately ten minutes.<br/>Then the cat starts talking. He says his name is "Hannibal".<br/>He is the reason Will is now out of whiskey and aspirin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Therapy

**Author's Note:**

> One day I decided to inject some supernatural quirkiness into my new favorite TV show. What you are about to read is the result of that experiment.  
> I am very proud of this.

“You can’t focus on the negatives, Will.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose.

“You know I’m right.”

“You are,” I agreed, “but “right” doesn’t mean “helpful”, Alana.”

She pursed her lips at the barb and just like that, the impromptu therapy session ground to a halt.

I tried a more diplomatic approach. “Alana, I’m not depressed.”

“Then why did you ask to see me?”

“I’m asking myself that more and more lately.”

“Do you want me to refer you to another psychiatrist?” A blunt question, one she had clearly been waiting to ask.

“Do you want to refer me to another psychiatrist?” I tossed back.

“I want what’s best for you, Will.”

I took a deep breath. I’d heard that several times.

“Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I _feel_ like I don’t want to be here anymore.” It was an honest but unnecessary comment. “I’m sorry I’m being difficult, but I’d like to see if I can deal with my issues on my own.”

“Did you come here to stop your sessions, or because you felt confused?” Her brown eyes accented the warmth of the room.

“This can’t all be because of Abigail, Will. There has to be something else,” she pressed, fishing for a response.

_That’s it. I’m done with therapy._

 

I agreed to one more meeting before escaping the confines of her overheated office. The frigid outside air hit me like a wall, and suddenly I knew I wouldn’t sleep that night. The short walk to my car let me plan the next few hours.

I wouldn’t put my head down on the pillow; I wouldn’t take an aspirin, or test a homeopathic remedy. I’d stay awake until morning. Tomorrow I’d show the class a movie, lay my head on the desk, and sleep.

By the time I pulled into the driveway my schedule was set in stone and I was mentally selecting from my small repertoire of indie films. I was so distracted by that tedious prospect that, as I let myself into the house, I barely noticed a new presence - a shadow on my kitchen table. I did a full double take.

It was a flea-bitten, patched cat, sitting in a beam of moonlight. I spun around in the chilly dark and saw my kitchen window was open. I slammed the offensive means of ingress and turned to my small pack of friends, all huddled together in the living room on their pillows.

“Good job keeping out the intruder, guys.”

They looked back at me innocently; Winston whimpered, as if to absolve himself of guilt. I turned back to the dirty fur ball on my kitchen table.

“You’ve reached the residence of Will Graham,” I said with a grandiose wave, “and his collection of canines.”

The cat was unimpressed.

“Sorry, buddy, I’m not good with cats.”

I scratched it behind the ear. Dirt came off on my fingers.

“I could at least clean you up.” I gathered the boycat in my arms and he remained calm; no clawing, no yowling. Even after the water started he continued to gaze at me with bored, yellow eyes, as if he was infinitely more dignified than tap water.

His silver chest, free of dirt, shined in the scant light. Black fur dripped down the center of his throat, giving the silver the impression of a cloven heart.

I started the blow dryer and he hissed and raised his hackles. Drying him was a fight that left the boycat tired and irritated; the second I let go, he hopped out of the sink and out of sight, presumably to find a dark corner where he could growl and lick his wounded pride.

I found him curled in a disgruntled ball in the middle of my bed.

“And this is why I hate cats.” A beady yellow eye opened to glare at me. “You’re going straight to the shelter tomorrow, buddy.” But I smirked, knowing that I didn’t have the heart to give him away.

I mentally adjusted my schedule for the following day; I’d have to pick up cat food on my way home.

 

By some strange miracle I constructed a fraction of a meaningful lesson plan and stumbled through it the next day. Concerned pairs of eyes followed me out of the classroom; I hurried to avoid questions.

My newest tenant was high atop the kitchen cabinets, looking down like the imperious, shithead ruler of my dogs, until I dropped a large bag of food on the counter. The boycat leaped from his perch out of curiosity. I pushed a bowl towards him. He gave me a withering look and swiped it to the ground, sending kibble everywhere.

“Hey!”

He didn’t even flinch.

Rubbing my forehead, I decided to ask my phone: “Siri, why won’t my cat eat his food?”

I scrolled through the suggested articles and came to a few conclusions about the boycat: one, he was a picky, pretentious asshole. Two: he was strangely healthy for a picky, pretentious asshole.

“How has your sophisticated palate not starved you, buddy?” I frowned. He padded to the door and turned, looking expectant. I smiled.

“You’re a hunter. Alright, go catch your own dinner you dignified little shit.” I opened the sliding glass door and he bolted into the night, melting into the shadows.

Not ten minutes later he scratched at the door, mouth around a scrawny rabbit, sitting back on his haunches with impeccable posture. I slid the door open again and he dropped it at my feet, a gesture I didn’t fully understand. None of my dogs had done anything like this before.

“Is this a thank you?”

I nudged it with my foot.

“Siri, why is my cat giving me a dead rabbit?”

Apparently it was an evolutionary desire to show me the fruits of the hunt and teach me how to get food.

“I’m not your kitten, buddy,” I said. “You don’t have to give me food; I know how to get food.”

But it was primarily a maternal instinct - male cats didn’t provide for their young.

“Unless you think you’re my kitten, in which case… this is you showing off.”

I swear to Christ, the cat nodded. Apparently he recognized me as his guardian and this was a cry for attention.

“You’re telling me you can take of yourself. Well, good for you; I’m proud.” Boycat crunched his jaws down on his quarry and hauled it away, presumably to boast in front of the dogs. “Weirdo.”

My phone rang. Only two people could be calling at this hour, Alana or-

“Hi, Jack. What do you need?”

“I need you at this address,” he replied without preamble and rattled off a street name and number.

“Right now?”

“Yes.” He hung up.

It was bad.

“Cromwell,” I called. A wrinkled bulldog’s head perked up. “You’re in charge.”

 

The house was easy to find. A black spot in a crowded neighborhood. It might’ve scorched the night sky dull orange while it burned, like a premature sunrise. As I approached the charred ruins and sirens, the smell of ash slipped into the car.

I breathed sparingly.

Beverly Katz handed me a mask on my way inside. Cracked pictures lined the black hallway.

Jack stood by a corpse centered in the empty living room - it sat upright in a dining chair, head lolling to the side. White bits of skull peeked through its wiry scalp.

“Got remains of some ropes here.” Zeller said. He indicated the arms.

“She was restrained,” Jack said.

Jimmy Price gestured to the floor, “Note the pentagram on the floor.”

We all stepped back. There it was, scrawled in bright red, the chair and woman at the center. A moment of silent remuneration passed before Jack nodded to the others.

“Okay, everybody, clear out.”

The last few seconds of companionship trickled away, and then I was alone.

Death wafts around with smoke; thick, broken air stings the eyes - it warms skin and cools blood. I feel freezer-burned.

I go through the token motions. Pace around around her - she might’ve been a pretty blond - paint the star, throw kerosene up and down the walls. Spattering without a thought for art or substance, my hand is hurried by caution-less determination. I knock aside pictures and lampshades as I move through the house, not out of malice or fear but excitement. My heart races, pumping and shaking.

I’m not practiced. I’m not trying to compose a symphony to Satan. I’m trying to sanitize. I see something about this person that no one else does: a hidden impurity. She is rotten to the core. Offensive.

Wiping away the stain of her existence is my purpose, my excitement.

I light the match. The house catches.

Jack and the others return.

“First impressions, Will. Ritual killing?” Jack directed at me. I shoved my hands in my pockets.

“Fire is cleansing,” I said.

“So she was unclean, dirty somehow.”

“This is cauterization. The only redemption for this woman was death.”

“Is he religious?”

“In a way. The pentagram is a fairly obvious homage; it’s seems like he’s trying too hard.”

“He’s desperate for attention,” Jack said.

“Or he’s got a hard-on for the classics,” Zeller called from under the kitchen sink.

“Not a bad thought,” I said.

“Maybe this was a witch hunt,” Beverly said half-heartedly.

“I found her diary!” Price sang from the other room. He brandished a singed, leather-bound book with a grin.

Zeller hit his head on a pipe. “You’re shitting me!” He and Jack huddled around Price’s find. Beverly sidled next to me, no doubt to ask me about my personal life. She meant well.

“So. How’s it going?”

“I got a new stray.”

“Again? God, it’s like you’re running a doggie bed and breakfast!”

“Oh no, this one’s a cat.”

“A cat? Interesting. Picked a name yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Can’t go wrong with emperors. Caesar’s a great name,” Beverly suggested.

“Will, listen to this - the last entry,” Price called. He seemed excited. “October 3rd: My boyfriend took me to see Turandot at the Met. It was beautiful and cathartic, and we gave a standing ovation at the end. Puccini is really underrated in the world of classical music." She talks about the play for a few pages before this little gem: "In other news, my Wicca group started compiling fire spells in some nice binders we bought at Staples."”

He held up an armful of melted binders.

“A Wiccan,” I muttered.

“Poor girl. That boyfriend did not know real drama,” Beverly sighed. “Should’ve gone to see Phantom.”

“Well, I don’t know about you but I also think Puccini is underrated,” I said.

“Oh, entirely. Bach and Mozart have stolen the classical spotlight,” Price said, jumping onboard, “even Morricone-”

Jack cleared his throat. “She was a Wiccan. Would this have anything to do with her murder?”

“Wiccans don’t worship Satan,” Zeller clarified. “They’re like modern-day pagans and herbalists.”

“Not everyone knows the difference,” I said, turning to Beverly. “Maybe this guy thought he was hunting witches.”

 

I fell on the bed before I saw the boycat. He yelped and squirmed out from under me, then gave me an earful of claws. I was too tired to shoo him away, and instead sank into sleep.

I slept deep for an hour before snapping awake, drenched in sweat, nostrils full of burning flesh.

Bright yellow eyes followed me to the bathroom. I clambered into the shower fully clothed, shocked my immune system with freezing water, and clambered back out to shiver in front of the mirror.

Wrapping my body in a towel, I returned, dripping wet; awake, but exhausted behind my eyes.

“Cat, I had a bad day,” I said matter-of factly.

I needed to give him a name. That was a fixable problem.

“Siri, give me a list of quirky cat names,” I told my phone. I scrolled through dozens of lists, occasionally reading one aloud.

“Ajax. Armani. Gatsby. Hephaestus. Onyx. Salem - there’s a good one. What do you think?” I asked sarcastically.

“You know, Hannibal isn’t a bad name.”

I looked up. I was sleep deprived and stressed, and my ears hadn’t heard that.

“Just a suggestion,” my cat said. A vaguely foreign, deep voice, entirely too surreal to be believed. I rubbed my eyes.

He gave a lazy blink.

“Tell me about your bad day, Will.”


	2. Hannibal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal is quite obnoxious and Will is too sober for this. Cat hijinks ensue.

“You look troubled.”

I didn’t reply. Alana picked at one of her red nails.

“If this is really going to be your last session, I’d like to offer some effective advice.”

I raised my gaze to meet hers with an almost audible snap, like two arrows colliding in midair. After a pause, I pushed out a short sentence.

“I got a cat.”

“That’s new,” she observed. “Cats are very different from dogs. Autonomous, introverted. Do you feel like it’s a new responsibility?”

“It’s a new problem.”

“How so?”

Blood surged to my ears and I had to look down. She would take it one of two ways: I was insane, or I was physically unhealthy. Either way she would insist on more therapy. I took the plunge.

“Because I don’t know if he’s real.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He talked to me.”

I watched her eyebrows knit together.

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” I said, “this new case - it’s half murder, half witch hunt. I had a nightmare, woke up, and then he started talking to me.”

“What did he say?” I appreciated her gravitas in the moment.

I decided nonchalance was the best frame for my next response. “He told me his name, and then he asked me about my day.”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything; I slept on the couch.”

Alana tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and folded her hands. “Well, granted, this was probably a hallucination. In retrospect, do you think it had significance?”

“I’m projecting my issues onto my pets?” I guessed. “I don’t know. The name isn’t bad; my subconscious has a penchant for interesting names.”

Alana’s head tilted to the side.

“So, do I need a prescription?” I grimaced.

“Have you noticed any other symptoms? Memory loss, headaches?”

I racked my brain. “Not that I can think of. What do I do?”

“The easy part - confirm that the cat is real; take a picture, invite someone over. I want you to call me the second something else happens. If the cat talks again, pay attention to what he’s saying, what he’s doing. And if he disappears altogether-”

“It’ll be for the best.” I meant it.

 

“I’m home.”

I stepped over the threshold and felt a sudden presence rub against my leg.

“Hi, Hannibal,” I said warily. I snapped a photo of him and sent it to Beverly; hopefully she wouldn’t ask why I was taking pictures of the floor.

I cast my eyes around. “Where is everybody?”

Muffled whimpers made my spine stiffen. I saw my dogs’ faces on the other side of the sliding glass door, shivering in the backyard. I all but leapt across the kitchen table to rip the door open. The dogs sped to my room, strangely silent and docile.

My first thought was burglars, but looking around, I could see nothing valuable had been taken. Had someone broken into my house only to lock the dogs out and… not take anything? There weren’t any signs of forced entry. I would hold off on 9-1-1 for now. Right now I needed to calm down.

Aspirin. I needed an aspirin. I grabbed a bottle out of the medicine cabinet and popped it open.

“The fuck?”

I checked the other two bottles. I walked back to the kitchen, took out a bowl, and dumped their powdery contents. They had been filled with flour.

I felt a playful smugness in the air. Hannibal drew my eyes like a black hole. He jumped onto the counter and held up a dusty white paw.

_What the fuck is going on?_

“I’m not insane,” I breathed in defiance. “I’m not. But the alternative is that someone is fucking with me. And that someone is not you.” It sounded more like a dare than a fact.

The cat in question retreated to the arm of the couch and started to lick his paws clean.

“It can’t be you, because… cat. Obviously. So, let’s pretend I’ve gone insane for a second.” I sat down opposite the cat. “You’re trying to get my attention. Why?” I was joking. Honestly, I was joking; I was uneasy and worried about my dogs’ safety and thinking out loud. I never believed that Hannibal would actually stop, sit up, and open his mouth.

“I would like to help you,” he said.

I froze.

“Although I do enjoy my petty torments, I believe it’s now time to move past that.”

A long pause and several aborted attempts to swallow my tongue later, I shouted, “Out. Out. Get out.”

The tabby cocked his head and spoke again. “What?”

“Shut up and get out!”

“No, thank you.”

I tossed the furball out by the scruff of his neck, taking him by surprise, and slammed the back door. I punched a number into my phone.

“Hello, Alana? The cat is talking again-”

“Will, this is ridiculous,” he shouted, white teeth flashing. He patted the door with a paw. “Be reasonable-”

“How are you feeling?” Alana asked from the other end.

“Fine, I guess; I don’t feel feverish.”

Hannibal continued to shout; I turned my back to him.

“When I got home the dogs were locked out of the house. And all my aspirin bottles are full of flour.”

“What?”

“Alana, I’m going to sound nuts, but I think someone-” I turned around when my ears detected the sudden absence of yelling from outside. “He’s gone.”

“Okay, Will, I’m going to bring you in for a brain scan and blood work; I know a few neurol-”

A knock at the front door.

“Good, good, text me the details,” I hung up and went to the door. I looked around, then down, and swore loudly at the cat on the doorstep.

“May we continue?” he asked, not the least bit ruffled. He took my silence as a confirmation and slid past me, settling onto the living room couch again.

I decided to reply.

“Are you a hallucination?”

“Would you be able to ask me if I were?”

I had no idea.

“Can a dreamer decide to recognize his dream as a false reality?” Hannibal mused. His lilting accent was more noticeable now, and I couldn’t place it.

_More like can a crazy man overcome his delusion just by saying, “there’s no place like home”._

“If I am a symptom of an existing condition, that condition will either get worse, or it won’t,” he reasoned, tail twitching. “This will bleed over the borders of your mind; it hasn’t done that yet.”

“So?”

“Wouldn’t you like to see if this is real or not?”

“How?”

“Do nothing.”

“And if this isn’t real?”

“Better to keep your madness close at hand than let it slip out of your grasp.”

That gave me pause. “You’re very philosophical for a cat.”

“Cats are excellent philosophers,” Hannibal quipped. He slid off the couch and jumped into my lap, snuggling against my chest. It was more creepy than comfortable.

“Tell me about your “bad day” yesterday,” he purred.

I thought about it, analyzed the situation, and decided - what the hell? If he was a hallucination, I was only telling myself what I already knew. If he wasn’t… he was a fucking cat, there weren’t a lot of things he could do with the information.

“A woman was burned to death inside her home,” I said. “She was tied to a chair and burned. There was a pentagram on the floor.” It seemed like a pointless detail, but I added, “According to her diary she liked Puccini.”

“I myself am partial to Mozart,” Hannibal shared.

“So is Jimmy Price,” I said, eyes narrowing. _Bach and Mozart have stolen the classical spotlight._

“Who?”

“A colleague. Him, Brian Zeller, Beverly Katz; we work on cases occasionally. Beverly gave me advice on pet names. "Can’t go wrong with… emperors."”

My cat, suddenly spouting his preference for Mozart? This cat, who chose the name Hannibal, otherwise known as the master of ancient Carthage?

“Doubting reality again, Will?”

If my mind was recycling information from recent memories, it was support for the hallucination theory. But Hannibal’s claws dug into my leg and offered a firm rebuttal to that. The smell of pine needles clung to his fur. Optical and auditory hallucinations without a preexisting condition? I could buy that easily. Stress had done worse things to me. Combined with tactile and olfactory hallucinations? Was that likely?

“What about you?” he asked, breaking me from my reverie. “Pick a composer.”

He couldn’t be real. There was no reason for it, biological or otherwise.

“I don’t listen to classical music,” I evaded.

“But if you had to pick?”

“Vivaldi,” I sighed.

“Noted,” Hannibal yawned and stretched.

“Could you please get off me?” Yellow eyes flicked up and he leapt over my leg like a hurdle. I stood and gathered my tackle and rod.

“Where are you going?”

“Fishing.”

Anything to get out of the house.

The cat nodded and snuggled deeper into the couch.

 

The stream didn’t keep back the paranoia for long; prickling waves rushed over the dams in my mind and consumed every small action. When I returned home Hannibal hadn’t moved an inch. He opened a beady eye and perked his head up.

_Please don’t start talking._

“Didn’t catch anything?”

_Goddammit._

“Obviously.” I grabbed a bottle from the liquor cabinet and took a swig. Saccharine taste triggered my gag reflex and I sprayed it across the wall. I checked the bottle, then shot a look at Hannibal.

“You shouldn’t drink that awful stuff, Will,” he said.

“What the hell did you do to my whiskey?”

“What do you think I did?”

Small granules clung to the rim of the bottle. Sugar. _How the everloving fuck is he doing this?_

“I can’t be sober for this, Hannibal.”

“Then have that pinot grigio in the back corner,” he sniffed. I snatched it.

“And pour me some, if you don’t mind.”

I paused mid-pour and raised an eyebrow. I put a splash in a small bowl and pushed it to the end of the counter. He hopped up and ducked his head in appreciation.

“Never knew cats were fond of wine,” I muttered.

“I am, at least.”

“Gotta hand it to you, you are the weirdest, control freak-iest cat I’ve ever met.”

“If you’ve met me at all,” he replied shrewdly. “And for future reference, Yellow Tail isn’t real wine. I would be more than willing to provide you with a list of affordable vintages, with a great degree of variety.”

_Pretentious little shit. He has the vocabulary of a Bond villain._ I smiled despite myself.

“Would you like to talk about your nightmares?”

My face slipped back into a frown. “What?”

The cat examined me, tail twitching.

“They’re normal.”

“For you, maybe.”

“It’s an occupational hazard.”

“Sacrificing peace of mind for your job?”

“It’s worth it.”

“And who’s the judge of that?”

“Me.” _Who else?_

“Will.” There is was again - my name in that strange accent, half-chiding, half-serious, dragging me down from ambiguity like an anchor. This couldn’t be real. “You should take better care of yourself.”

_It really says something about my mental state that my mind has resorted to sending me warnings about my health through a cat._

“Any recommendations?” I asked, absentmindedly checking my phone. Beverly complimented my “adorbs lil kitty”. _Damn._

“If you aren’t willing to cut back on your hours,” Hannibal started, and I nodded, “then you’ll need to come to terms with these things on your own.”

I had heard those words first in my own head a long time ago, then aloud in therapy with Alana, with her traditional grave tone. Hannibal’s version of those words carried a simplicity of tone; it was candid, not serious, not incisive.

“I’m doing fine without your help.”

He cocked his head. “Take me to the house, Will.”


	3. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal tries his hand at therapy. Things don't go very well for Will.

The house was different; cleaner. Broken bits of wood and glass swept aside by forensic feet in a hurry to escape. Wind brushed through open doorways and windows, augmenting the emptiness. Beverly Katz appeared from behind a crumbling wall, hair in a shower cap, hands in latex gloves. She took both off with a snap.

“Hey, Will. What are you doing here?”

“You know, I asked myself that a second ago and for some reason the only answer I can come up with is loud buzzing.”

“Okay, then what’s the cat doing here?”

I searched for a satisfactory response while Hannibal remained silent in my arms. “Therapy?”

“I heard Dr. Bloom was a little unconventional,” she said, taking the excuse graciously. She scratched him behind the ear. _Unconventional is one word for what this is…_

“Are you wrapping up?”

“Wasn’t enough left of the place to begin with. We’re done. You can let him wander around.”

I put Hannibal down. He darted out of sight.

“I was always a cat person; born to it, I guess. He really is adorable,” she smiled.

“He sure is something,” I muttered.

Two minutes of smalltalk later she was gone, one last cautious look thrown back over her shoulder, and I was alone.

Floorboards creaked, the shuddering exhalation of a dying home.

“Hannibal?” I found him on a splintered mantelpiece over the fireplace, staring at a print, one of the few spared in the inferno. It was a bonsai tree.

“What do you hear, Will?”

I considered it, held him with my eyes.

“A dull roar.”

A yellow eye flicked, inspected me. Waiting for an explanation.

“The walls crashing in around me, memoriesdying. The fire roaring.” It sounded better in my head.

“The last gasp of a life.”

I peer into cabinets that might’ve been cherry red; the smell of melted plastic permeates my skin.

“Walk me through it.” Hannibal means it in the figurative and the literal sense; the crime and the house. I return to the doorstep. I let the pendulum swing behind my eyelids.

“I come through the front door.” If he’s surprised by “I”, he doesn’t show it.

I breathe deep.

“The bolt is locked. I kick the door in and it takes a chunk out of the door frame.” I proceed to the kitchen. “I surprise her here; I have a gun, or not; we struggle; with a sharp hit to her temple, she drops to the floor. I tie her to a chair.” The chair and pentagram are gone, the chair for evidence, the pentagram for cleanliness, but they are still here behind my eyes.

“At first I’m careful; I douse her in kerosene and spread it outward in a circle. But the effect isn’t visible yet, and I’m impatient; I want to see the fire catch. I light it. She’s conscious when it starts to burn. I leave the house in a panic; at first I was afraid I’d be engulfed, but even more - it’s likely, by now, she’s started to scream.”

I returned to my sight, blinding yellow and orange replaced by black.

“Unfortunate,” Hannibal mused, but from him it sounded token and tired. The word was cold, like a splash of ice water.

“You see yourself lighting the fire,” the cat continued, steps laced with a kind of willfulness. “Is this a common experience for you?”

“I light a lot of fires,” I muttered.

“Do you burn bridges as easily as you burn houses?”

“I don’t have any bridges to burn.”

“Not one for friendships?”

“I’m better with dogs.”

“So I noticed.”

Hannibal slunk along a nearby wall and investigated the staircase; leapt onto the banister, perched with perfect balance, watched me from above.

“Why do you walk through these houses, Will?”

“Because I’m the only one who can hear them.”

My hands found a solid bookshelf and a cracked the cover of a coding book. I wondered why she had it. _A Wiccan who could code?_ A playful contradiction; people were laced with them everywhere.

“But can you bear to listen?”

“I have to,” I shrugged and shut the book.

“Did she have a familiar?”

“What?”

“Your Wiccan. Did she have any pets - creatures she valued dearly?”

“We didn’t find anything like that, no.” No small carcasses, no special food. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. Did she have anyone close to her?”

“Her boyfriend’s a doctor; we’re looking for him now,” I said. “Besides him, no one.”

“Have you started searching for similarities between this woman and yourself?”

 _I am now, thanks._ “Around the same age, lonely, living in a big empty house? What’s to compare?” I said sarcastically. “Except she had someone.”

“You have people. Your psychiatrist seems to care for your wellbeing, as does Miss Katz.”

I caught myself thinking, and about to say, _“they don’t count.”_ Hannibal anticipated me.

“But perhaps life is constructed by exceptions to known rules.”

“At least mine is,” I grimaced. “Here I am, talking to a cat.”

“I am no mere exception; I’m a _bona fide_ enigma,” Hannibal said sardonically, employing the Latin pronunciation of “bona fide”.

“You’re pretty full of yourself.” Understatement.

“No need to be rude, Will,” he chastised from his perch.

“We should get back; I made an appointment for you at the vet.”

He stiffened in affront. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Will,” he started, “I hope you intend to keep me intact, or I might find a reason to disappear.” I could sense his concern from the bottom of the stairs and I took a second to appreciate it.

“Hannibal, I can’t afford to neuter all of my pets. It’s a check-up.”

His silence prickled. Then, with tremendous dignity, he nodded. “Good.”

We left the du Maurier house together.

 

I dropped Hannibal off at home, content with the knowledge that he had all of his shots (somehow) and only a mild case of arthritis. For a cat his age, he was in excellent health.

Feeling distinctly silly, I rolled down my window and said, “I’m going to the liquor store.”

His ears perked up. “One moment.” He bounded into the house and returned with note in his mouth.

I took it. “Your list, as promised,” he said.

 _He actually wrote a list. My cat_ wrote _a list. How-_ “Nice.” _Passive aggressive._ “Thank you.”

“I organized them by points, then by price,” he added.

“Got it. Thanks.”

His mouth thinned, like he was chewing on some other words of advice. “You’re sure-”

“I got it,” I snapped.

I put the car in reverse, swung slowly out of the driveway, and drove away.

 

Thirty minutes later I was pacing up and down an unfamiliar wine aisle, frowning, looking from the bottles to the list to the bottles again.

“Goddammit, Hannibal, your writing is fucking awful.” Being a cat probably didn’t leave much in the way of penmanship.

I squinted. “What language even is this?”

I grabbed the only bottle with a recognizable label.

“Grace,” I greeted the cashier, a twenty-something chain smoker with plucked eyebrows and big earrings. She flashed me a brilliant smile. “You look happy. Hearing go well?”

“He’s in.” She brandished a bare ring finger.

“How long?”

“Four years, but by then I’ll be lo-ong gone.”

“When?”

“They’re takin’ him tomorrow.”

“Good,” I smiled.

She rang me up. “Have a good night, Mr. Graham.”

“You too, Grace.”

I stepped out into the cold night and drew my coat tighter around me. I proceeded down the street to my car. A fist with the consistency of a cement block blindsided me. White hot pain crackled in my eye socket, across my jaw, spreading numbness to my brain. I ate sidewalk. The shadow over me stopped to gloat; the words melted and stung my throbbing ears. I hobbled to my feet, held out an arm, grabbing at air for balance. A bead of blood dropped from my lip. A blunt blow collided with my stomach and sent me flying back into metal - my car.

I glanced up in time to see him ready another punch.

The arm halted its descent. Something abruptly caught it mid-air. The world shook in my sight, but I detected a second shadow, this one taller, thinner, and _quicker_. I didn’t see the hits, only heard them, muffled and heavy as the wide-set man grunted and wheezed. His legs went out from under him and he hit the pavement. The crack of breaking ribs as a foot stomped on his chest once, twice. The shape paused, hovered. A low rumble emanated from this new presence. I shook my head clear and realized he was growling before the sound faded.

The sputtered breathing of bloody lungs broke the weighty silence.

With a small rustle, the upright figure slipped the big man’s coat over his shoulders.

I fumbled for my phone. I felt a hand lock around my wrist and rip it from my hand. I fought - struck out reflexively with my free hand, kicked his shins. The flashlight flicked on and blinded me.

“Will,” slow, familiar. I stopped. I was hallucinating again.

“I’m trying to see if you have a concussion.” He held up a finger. I followed it with my eyes.

“Good. Let’s get you in the car - I think it’s best if we leave now. Shame about the wine.”

But I wasn’t disoriented anymore; I was lucid, and my eyes had adjusted. I looked from the stranger’s face to the body on the sidewalk, and I could only say one thing:

“Hannibal?”

White lips pressed into a thin line.

“Hannibal, why are you a person?” To my dimly ringing ears it sounded high-pitched, even desperate.

“I suppose the cat’s out of the bag,” he smirked.

Fear and adrenaline mixed with dizzy, incoherent anger.

I hauled off and punched him right in the face.


	4. Familiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A candid discussion.  
> Hannibal was a cat yesterday, all his arguments are invalid.

“You were a cat.”

He stood there in my kitchen, nursing a large shiner, wearing clothes too small for him (my clothes). I heard him sip coffee out of my mug.

“You were a _cat_.”

It didn’t matter how many times I said it; I couldn’t sit there and believe. For the past twenty minutes I’d been sitting on the couch, head in my hands, repeating the same phrase, and it wouldn’t stick.

“I’m insane.”

A different, simpler phrase, not unfamiliar.

“You’re not insane, Will.” The first words he’d said.

“Something got dislodged in my brain,” I said, not to him or at him; I directed it at the floor. “Ever since that woman…”

The quiet was perforated by another tentative sip of coffee. Hannibal put the cup down and moved slowly to sit across from me.

“Will.”

I looked up, to my immediate regret. His face was sharp and inhospitable as an arctic breeze; pallid skin stretched thin over sunken cheeks; yellow eyes turned muted gold like piss circling a double drain, one undercut by a thick, dark spot. Base. Stiff. A breathing corpse. It was a hypnotizing exercise in disgust, not because he was ugly, but because his presence poisoned the air.

“You are not insane.” I was not inclined to believe anything that mouth, as if carved out of his face by a bowie knife, uttered to me.

“Thanks. That’s comforting.”

That cracked a smile out of him. Under normal circumstances a smile would relax the face and promote shared humor; this one enhanced Hannibal’s otherness. My blood chilled. “I had hoped to introduce you to the concept over time, allow you to adjust to this at your own speed. Circumstance it seems only has one setting.”

“Always too fast.”

“And now that you know, I’ve made you believe you’re going insane. I would apologize, but it wasn’t entirely my fault.”

“I was hit over the head. I’m probably unconscious right now.”

“The unconscious mind dreams in abstract; shapes and symbols only carry meaning in retrospect, if they carry meaning at all. So far, the events you’ve experienced are linear and, I would argue, lie within the realm of reality.”

“You would argue that,” I huffed. “You were a cat yesterday.”

“I would suggest you withhold judgment until you confirm I’m real.” It carried the cadence of a command.

“I held off on calling the police, didn’t I?”

“Only because you doubt me.”

“I doubt _me_ ,” I corrected. “Thought that would be obvious… They’ve probably found him by now.”

“Did you know him?”

“He’s Grace’s ex-husband. He must’ve seen me talking to her.” I imagined her face, seeing him unconscious on the sidewalk, paramedics tending to his shattered bones. It wasn’t a sad face.

“The woman at the liquor store?”

I narrowed my eyes.

“You followed me.” The knowledge only just clicked in place.

He blinked.

“Oh my God - you didn’t think I could handle buying a bottle of wine?” Indignation lightened the paralysis. It felt safer to move. I didn’t know what offended me more, the fact that he’d beaten a man within an inch of his life, or that he didn’t have faith in my ability to read.

“Having known you for three days, I can already tell your priorities tend to skew towards the meaningless,” he frowned.

“My reality’s been a little upside-down the past few days, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

Another pensive sip. “Would you like to right it?”

“Open to suggestions.”

“Solve this case.”

“Brilliant,” I snapped. “You should be the detective.”

“I was always more interested in scaling the fence of the law than propping it up.”

“You did just brutally attack a man not… two hours ago.”

I saw him check his watch - _my_ watch.

“And you don’t look that torn up about it,” I added.

“Neither do you.” A piercing rebuttal that had a surprising lack of sting. The next words came unbidden to my lips.

“He was a jackass.” A cascade of guilt in my stomach; he might have deserved a beating, but not the relentless, rib-breaking torture Hannibal had inflicted.

Hannibal nodded like it was a profound, philosophical statement.

“And he was going to kill you.”

“Would you have killed him?”

“It wasn’t necessary.”

“What will you do if he presses charges?” I asked.

“He would have to find me first.”

“But if he did?”

“I suspect I would do what I had to.”

Shock in perpetrators of this kind of violence wore off quickly. I realized then Hannibal hadn’t given me an honest moment of emotion since he dragged me through the door.

“You conducted yourself well; it was calculated,” I said, studying his gray face. An appreciative, almost imperceptible nod, accompanied by a pleased glint in his piss-colored eyes. _Inflated sense of self._ My heart sank.

“I can’t imagine what Grace is going through right now; I imagine she’s very conflicted,” I probed further. Eyelids descended slightly, a twitch of the eyebrow. Boredom, mixed with confusion.

_Lack of empathy._

I swallowed.

“He loved her, but not enough to stop dealing drugs,” I frowned, searched for a clue. Nothing. No reaction.

_Not an addict. Probably no prescriptions, either._

He was textbook.

_Fuck me. I just diagnosed him._

“Never met a textbook narcissist before.” _I generally stay away from poisonous people._ “Nice to meet you,” I said, feeling emboldened by my discovery.

“What makes you think I’m a narcissist?”

“Force of habit,” I deflected. “Interested in killing me?” I thought it would be prudent to ask, no matter how certain I was that he was a figment of my imagination. Or how certain I was that he wouldn’t kill me if he hadn’t done it already. Hannibal wasn’t a man with qualms or priors; he was careful to the point of obsession. Careful with his posture, careful with his ( _my_ ) clothes, most careful with his face. But murder still seemed like a reach until I saw the disturbing smile return.

“No,” he said, with the amendment, “but I can’t promise that will not change in the near future.” A wink.

_So this is what it looks like when psychopaths flirt. Classy._

“Wish you hadn’t ruined all my whiskey,” I muttered.

“Real gentlemen should marinate their livers in wine,” he smirked.

“As far as I know, I’m the furthest thing from a gentleman on this continent.”

“You could always learn. Everything takes practice.”

I gave him my best withering look. “Good to know you’re looking out for my best interests.”

“I was right about visiting the house, wasn’t I?”

“I do feel better, yes,” I said. “Or I did, before I went off the deep end.” Pale eyebrows drew together half a centimeter.

“Would you like some time alone?”

“On the off chance you actually assaulted someone, I don’t think I should let you out of my sight. Not that I expect you to admit to anything, but I am curious how much _practice_ you’ve had with the sport.”

He didn’t grace that with a response. I decided to ask a question he could answer.

“Are you a doctor, Hannibal?”

“I am a psychiatrist. Before that I was a surgeon. Does knowing that bother you?”

Quite frankly, the idea of such a cadaverous face hovering over me in the ER scared the shit out of me.

“Feels less personal, knowing you talk to people like me for a living,” I said, with as much sarcasm as I could muster. It was less personal because he was fucking psychotic.

“If it makes you feel any better I haven’t practiced in years.”

“How would that make me feel better?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps you could trust me more, knowing that I’m fallible and… rusty?”

The word curled up at the end, bent and pruned by his accent.

I muttered a non sequitur, “You speak very good English.”

“For a Lithuanian?”

My brain tucked away that nugget of information. “For a cat.”

“Thank you.”

Silence reigned again. Figuring the conversation was over, Hannibal laid down on his side, shut his eyes to sleep.

My phone buzzed.

“Jack?”

“We found the boyfriend; a doctor. Picked up a practice in Baltimore.”

A yellow eye slit open.

“Name’s Hannibal Lecter. We think he’s skipped town. Last known location is du Maurier’s but his office is in the city,” he said and relayed an address. I didn’t hear anything past the name. Jack’s voice faded into cicada-like, bandsaw buzzing.

“Good,” I said. Even though I knew Jack couldn’t see me, my face was frozen solid - force of habit to avoid raising red flags. “Text me the details. See you there.”

“And you can bring the cat,” he said.

“Beverly told you?” I assumed mechanically. I have more than one functional train of thought under stress. Practice.

“I heard it from a student, who heard it from a trainee, who heard it from a CSI, who heard it from Zeller. It was in Tattlecrime this morning-”

That was an unwelcome distraction.

“Christ, this is why I can’t have nice things…” I could already see the headline - _Crazy Cat-Lady Profiler Will Graham Gets Paws All Over Crime Scene_ or whatever.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught the twitch of Hannibal’s smile.

“So the place is clean?”

“Spotless so far,” Jack sighed from the other end. “We’re looking through his stuff right now; has one hell of a library.”

“I’ll leave now.” I hung up. Hannibal eyed me.

“I take it you heard all of that,” I said.

“I may have heard a little. It is a shame about Bedelia,” he said wryly.

The ticking of the kitchen clock.

“Care to explain?”

“I was Dr. du Maurier’s familiar.”

I felt a shallow, knee-jerk urge to laugh at the absurdity of that sentence.

“You were the boyfriend,” I said. “Thought you preferred Mozart to Puccini.”

“I could hardly refuse her a trip to the Opera,” he said.

“And after the Opera?”

He acquired a contemplative look. “I went for a hunt, and returned to find the house razed to the ground.”

I stared at my hands; my gut itched for hard liquor. “Pretty blase about it.”

“We weren’t especially close. But it was unusual to see a body burned beyond recognition and, at the same time, recognize it.”

“You didn’t set the fire.”

Hannibal wasn’t offended; on the contrary, he seemed amused. “I could never have done anything to harm Bedelia.” I believed him. Still didn’t trust him.

“Unwilling or unable?”

When he didn’t respond I assumed the latter. I stood and went to the sliding glass door. A thin layer of snow crusted over the trees.

“Does all of this make you question your sense of reality?”

“Deja vu and prophetic dreams make me question my sense of reality. This is fucking my sense of reality into the ground and smashing it to pieces with a two-by-four.”

Hannibal tilted his head to one side like he was stalking a small bird.

“They need you to give a statement.”

“And say what?”

“What you told me - minus the cat part. It’ll clear the air.”

“Right now the FBI are convinced I’m responsible-”

“And this will help get them on the right track,” I interrupted. “Unless that’s not what you want.”

“It isn’t.”

I was about to ask what he wanted to happen, but then the rest clicked into place.

Me. He wanted me to find him; he didn’t trust the police or the FBI.

“You were looking for me.” It was a statement. He didn’t respond - he didn’t need to. “You want me to find whoever did this to her, because no one would believe a crazy cat person. Except a crazy dog person, I guess. And here I thought you just wandered in one night by accident.”

“Never by accident,” he said, a smile in his voice. I turned in time to see it vanish.

“Attacking that man - that was you protecting your vendetta,” I continued.

He regarded me, considered his next words the way a poet chose a pretentious rhyme. _Whose woods these are I think I know…_

“Call it base instinct.”

“Nothing baser than bloodlust.”

“Is that the echo of a memory I hear?”

“Might be,” I dodged. It was a halfhearted, weak little evasion and Hannibal pounced.

“Perhaps you’d like to tell me,” he said, not asking. His tone drew the words out of me like a string of handkerchiefs.

“A guy read about me in the papers. Ran over one of my dogs, Abigail,” I said. “She didn’t die right away and he shot her.”

“What did you do?”

“Got his plate number, called the police.”

“Do you regret not acting further? Not taking the matter into your own hands?”

“Maybe,” I hedged.

“How did his actions make you feel?”

“I wanted to rip him apart. Then I wanted to rip myself apart.”

The radiator hummed. I had already told Hannibal more than I’d told Alana in the past six weeks. I’d known him three days, watched him turn from a cat to person, brutally beat a man, and just like that he’d wrangled more out of me than she had. I sought out a change of subject.

“Anything else I should know about this case, except for you being a… a what? A werecat?” From what I could tell he wasn’t constrained by the lunar cycle, which called the term into question, but he shrugged despite the supposition.

“Not that I know of. It’s rather mundane once you get used to it.”

“Good,” I muttered. “Keep it that way until I get my brain scanned.” I had that sinking feeling, like standing in front of that house, like waking up in the middle of the night, _knowing_ a big thing loomed over my head, too big to comprehend in one sitting. Like a tsunami, a slow swell at first, then fast. _Goddammit this is going to turn out to be real, isn’t it?_ I really didn’t want to face it sober.

“I’m going to go to your office. You’re coming with me.” _In cat form._ That last bit was implied. I’d be damned if I said it out loud.

“There isn’t anything in my office that I couldn’t provide from memory.”

“Better double-check,” I said. “And this way we can make sure you don’t leave anything out.”

A small nod. “I _am_ expected; best not disappoint my growing number of fans.”

_Fucking narcissist, you really are a cat._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The DSM-V was used in Will's unofficial diagnosis. Please do not attempt to diagnose NPD in real life; you will almost certainly get slapped in the face.


	5. Solution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will checks a few more boxes on the psychopath checklist and makes an ill-advised decision about his "friend".

“What’s his name?”

I deliberated for a second and told the CSI, “Napoleon.”

“Great name,” he smiled. “I had a Catsby, a Bastet, and an Atticus all at once; mayhem, let me tell ya-”

“Everybody out!” Jack shouted, louder than necessary. The CSI jumped and sped out with the others. I stood, cat in hand, staring around the room with Jack.

“It’s not a murder scene, Jack, they don’t have to leave.”

“I’ll be right outside. Don’t worry about letting him around; the place is clean.” He left, shoulders hanging under disappointment.

The office was an open, two-story room that took up a good third of Lecter’s house. Dark wood bookshelves; frosted light fixtures; large windows; two chairs sat opposite each other across the median of a Persian rug. A desk with an empty itinerary. Large, solid-looking wardrobe in a back corner.

“Napoleon?” Hannibal asked, staring up at me.

“Only egotist I could think of.”

“You should read more literature.”

I let him down.

“Any recommendations?”

He clambered up the ladder and walked daintily along the banister. “I have a large collection. Take whatever you’d like. I won’t be returning for a while, I expect.”

I tread across the thick carpet.

“All this and you still lived with Dr. du Maurier?”

“I had very little choice in the matter.”

“Oh?”

He was silent. I snapped on a pair of gloves and flipped through a few encyclopedias. Boring. I moved over to his eclectic selection of cookbooks. Half of them were in languages I couldn’t read. I moved again to the anatomy section. My peripheral vision detected Hannibal leaping down from the floor above; he landed softly in front of the wardrobe.

“They took your suits,” I said.

“Pity.”

He batted it open and hopped inside.

“Someone wrote “sweetbreads” in the margin here.”

“Hm?”

A noncommittal sound that rung dully in the wood; he had definitely heard me.

“Sweetbreads, Hannibal. Why did someone write “sweetbreads” in the kidney section of a human anatomy textbook?”

“I suspect you wouldn’t like the answer.”

“What-”

I found more as I flipped through the pages. _Serve with ricotta. Sausage. Oeufs en meurette. A la Bretonne. Braise and stew._

I closed it and headbutted the cover. _Christ._ “It’s a cookbook.” _This Twilight Zone crap would happen to me, wouldn’t it?_

“I’m afraid I may have bought it from a man with questionable taste.”

“I swear to God,” I growled, turning around to glare at the wardrobe. “You are the creepiest cat in the history of the fucking planet.”

“That remains to be seen,” Hannibal spoke, face suddenly inches behind my ear, craning over my shoulder with intense interest. I flinched and smothered the instinct to smack him in the face with the book.

_Blatant disregard for the comfort of others._

He wore a charcoal, three-piece suit and crimson, paisley tie that screamed at my eyes.

“Where’d you get those?”

“Behind a false panel. In case of emergency,” he said. Nevermind he packed away suits for a rainy day instead of, say, a gun or briefcase full of money.

I shoved the book back in its place and retreated to a chair, running my hands through my hair.

“Fucking psychopath.” I sighed.

“Even if I am a psychopath, I should hope I’m not the worst one you’ve ever met,” Hannibal frowned. In a single, fluid motion he moved from his statuesque standing position to the seat across from me.

“Not by a long shot.”

“If you had to pick, who would be the worst?”

“Never thought about picking one. I just know you just aren’t the worst. I wonder, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“We are all of us tapestries of deeds and misdeeds. A complementary clash of colorful acts.”

_That’s a very decorative non-answer._

“Good and evil,” I muttered. “Yeah, right.”

“The binary is far too subjective. I relinquished “good and evil” a long time ago in favor of behaviorism.”

 _How Darwinian._ “I didn’t.”

“It can be comforting to have clear boundaries defined in your mind, like walls around a citadel,” he said. “Do you ever suspect you may have too many?”

“Nope.”

“Truly?”

“Only when people who care about me try to climb over them. Even then, I don’t usually let down a ladder.”

“That must be lonely.”

“You tell me,” I shot back, smirking. At least I was alone by choice; he was such a classic egomaniac it felt like I was looking at the Devil himself. Not much room for friends in that life. A muscle in his mouth twitched.

“You need me to solve this; you need me to want to solve this.” Being the shady stoic he was, Lecter was at a clear disadvantage. I twisted my next words around for maximum effect.

“Make me care. Give me a reason to do this.”

His eyes flicked to the door.

“You feel obligated to find Bedelia’s murderer,” he said.

“I do. For justice. I’d like to hear your reason.”

He sat back and crossed his legs.

Finally, “Quid pro quo.”

We were getting somewhere. “Balance.”

“Symmetry,” he corrected. “A sense of aesthetics. The man is ugly to me.”

“Because he killed her.”

For that Hannibal gave me his first, full smile. “Because he did it _inelegantly._ ”

Hearing that triggered the most intense flee response in my chest and brain that I had experienced to date. It injected something cold into my spine. Thought processes prickled with electricity, paralyzed, consumed by a single directive: run. The word repeated, over and over, with each pulse, quietly escalating. Considering my mingled feelings of terror and, to a lesser extent, rage, my higher brain was surprised I hadn’t pulled my gun yet.

_He’s dangerous._

In retrospect the reaction was a sharp flash in the pan and over inside five seconds. I reigned in my nervous system and relaxed my constricted throat. I have considerable experience with fear.

“Fair enough,” I said. I didn’t doubt he spoke the truth. “I’ll find him.”

He answered with a small, blinking nod.

I called out, “Jack! He’s here!”

Hannibal’s eyes narrowed but he remained still.

“And how will you explain my sudden, unusual arrival?”

_I won’t have to. Not my department._

He stood, smoothed his suit, and didn’t resist as the agents poured in, cuffed him, and pushed him into a van.

 

Hannibal found me after his interrogation. I was sitting outside a cafe three blocks from the Baltimore Field Office. He trailed two agents like black ducklings.

“I have been advised not to leave the area, and these gentlemen are to escort me to my hotel,” he said, gesturing to the seat next to me. I gave a grudging nod and he sat. “And they have frozen all my accounts.”

_Cry me a river._

“And yet, you still wrangled out of protective custody,” I muttered. “Isn’t it likely that you could become a victim of this man if he killed Bedelia for her beliefs?”

“I am not a Wiccan,” he smiled. “I am considerably less important.” An irresponsible good mood eked off his skin and augmented my frustration. I breathed deep.

“Where will you go?” I asked, gaze fixated on a cheery mother across the street feeding the baby in her arms. No ring. She was radiant, captivated by the baby’s wide eyes.

“I haven’t decided,” came his distant reply. I heard a dim ding in my head as I checked another box on the PCL. _Difficulty planning ahead, especially with realistic goals._

Muffled words in my ears.

“Hm?”

“Would you care to rent me a room?” he repeated. “Not a big room, I should think; I have a remarkable ability to compact myself.”

I knew he was serious; I didn’t laugh. “No.”

What little irritation the refusal sparked was quickly stifled by an apparent respect for its bluntness. “I couldn’t persuade you to reconsider?”

“No.”

The cogs in his brain were working harder than usual, though his face betrayed little.

“Not even in exchange for information?”

“If you had information to give, it would be smart to give it to the people who can help you.” I said, nodding to the agents seated a few tables away.

“Quid pro quo,” he reminded me. “They cannot give me what I want.”

 _This guy could give Machiavelli’s Prince a run for his money._ That checked another box on the list. _Exploitation of others…_

“I hope you’ve given me everything I need to catch this guy. It’d be a shame if I missed him because I didn’t have all the pieces,” I said, locking eyes with him, anger pulling at my lips.

Hannibal gave me a cold smile. “It would be.”

I reconsidered it.

 _No one else knows him. No one else knows the scope of this case._ I wondered if I could solve it regardless, find a way to lock up the firestarter without anyone gleaning the supernatural. I wondered if I could do all that by myself.

I saw a rubber room, felt the straight-jacket tightening around my chest, heard the smug purring of Hannibal on the outside. Felt the heat of the next house. That did the trick.

I glared at a passing car; the man in the cab shouted into his phone and threw his coffee out the window. I inhaled the bitter air and exhaled my trepidations. _Looks like I’m getting a roommate._

“Yes.”

My only consolation was his unveiled look of surprise.

“You don’t leave my sight until we find him.”

Small price to pay if I could save the next one.

“And when we do?”

“You go back to your house.” _Back to your isolated life until you do something actionable._

The glib smirk returned in full force. “Perfectly fair.”

_If only._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is my favorite; it was a freaking riot writing it.  
> Psychopath diagnosis courtesy of the O'Hare Psychopath Checklist-revised, or PCL-R.  
> I wouldn't recommend trying it out on your friends.


	6. Skirmishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Hannibal occupy the same space for several days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Otherwise known as the "fun" chapter.  
> Seriously. I had way too much fun writing this.

It didn’t take very long for me to figure out how Hannibal operated in domestic life. He was polite, industrious, and, truth be told, a fucking nightmare.

Nevermind the fact that I hadn’t lived with another person since college; I became quite certain very early on that Hannibal was qualitatively different from any other human roommate I had ever had and would ever have for the rest of my miserable life.

The first clue was the dishwasher. I don’t use a lot of dishes, but Hannibal, being the renaissance man, cooked with a studious, persistent fervor that never seemed to end. Although I could hardly complain about the quality of his work, he insisted unfailingly on cleaning up after himself. I could hardly complain about that either until I realized one afternoon, while he was loading the dishwasher, that he had altered the layout of the entire kitchen - pots and pans in different cabinets, spice rack alphabetized, plates re-stacked - all for “convenience’s sake”. At first I attributed this to a desire for normalcy in the wake of a life-changing tragedy. But then I remembered Hannibal was a psychopath, and that he had no emotional concept of either normalcy or tragedy. Reexamining his actions, I considered that he only understood methods of control. Hannibal had taken root in the house and now he owned the kitchen.

I recognized this for what it was and gave him a curious look.

“Would you like to do the honors?” he asked, gesturing to the dishes.

I shook my head. “You’re better at it than I am, anyway. I’m not very organized.”

I felt a pang of pride as I watched the compliment take Hannibal off guard: a minuscule pause of motion, lips parted, before he smiled. _Fucking narcissist. I’ve got your number, now._ Alas, only a momentary victory.

The second clue, or clues, were my shoes. Pulling on my loafers before class one morning, they felt rougher and more uncomfortable than usual. When I took them off I saw the insoles had been scratched to oblivion. I confronted Hannibal, saying that if he wanted a scratching post he could just fucking ask instead of ruining my favorite shoes.

“I don’t need a scratching post,” he replied, busy with a creme. “I wanted to encourage you to buy better footwear.”

I gaped, at least mentally, and left for class in a huff. I returned with a new box of shoes under my arm.

He repeated the routine for my fleece (until I bought a North Face), and again for several of my ties. He didn’t bother to scratch up any of my flannel, simply gave me weird frowns whenever I wore them. Small favors in the wake of the fact that Hannibal had extended his influence to my closet.

The final straw came when I returned home late one night and, blindly, tried to navigate my way around the house in pitch dark. I bumped into every piece of furniture at increasingly odd, painful angles until I hit a light. Washed in a yellow glow I found that I wasn’t a hopeless clutz. The room had been shuffled into an unrecognizable pattern. I called him. A cat sauntered down from his attic room, tail held high.

“Why did you rearrange all the furniture?”

He tilted his head to the side and looked up at me innocently. “To enhance the feng shui of the room. Don’t you find the energy more relaxing?”

And then it hit me, in the dim light of the living room, dogs poking curiously at my hands, that Hannibal’s currency was inconvenience. He dealt in small jabs and cuts, tiny annoyances that, when accumulated, begot a significant outcome. This was his way of testing me while also exerting a degree of authority over his environment, like a scientist conducting a controlled experiment .

Once my mind got a hold of that concept I couldn’t shake it; every small change afterward seemed monumental in my eye, like a declaration of war. Yet the angrier I became, the happier Hannibal seemed. He smiled more often, a gross, smug thing that enhanced my irritation. I often dreaded coming home, caught up in wondering what fresh hell it was that day - would he replace the sink or the lights? Would I arrive to find a contractor remodeling the bathroom?

I spent more time out of the house than usual, opting to languish for hours on end in the academy library, sifting through databases for more information on witchcraft. Perhaps Hannibal had intended this, too. Now that I was owner of the house in name only, I felt more motivated to track down Bedelia du Maurier’s “ugly” killer. Either Hannibal didn’t have a very good grasp on standard operating procedures or he severely overestimated my forensic impact on cases. Progress slowed to a halt on the Maurier murder despite Hannibal’s (oftentimes cryptic) assistance.

As a direct result of my increased workload, I slept less. My dreams were short, terrifying, and recursive, though one was worse than the rest:

In the midst of a black, starless night a shadow falls on a man - white teeth and the sheen of blood, and the everpresent growl of a panther, and the man screaming as his throat is ripped to shreds.

Sometimes I was the man, and Hannibal the panther. Other times I took the place of the monster. I couldn’t discern which was worse.

 

I glanced at the time and decided 1 A.M. was a good stopping point. My tragically healthy brain had shut down for the night. I went home.

Turning on the lights I couldn’t see any visible change, small or otherwise, but I caught Hannibal’s sharp profile by the glass door. He had his arms behind his back. His eyes stared out into the white yard, though I could tell he wasn’t seeing anything. Usually he was asleep at this hour.

I shrugged off the unusual sight and went cautiously to my bed. Two days ago I had replaced the sheets for ones with a higher thread count.

“I am disturbed,” Hannibal said all of a sudden.

Knowing this probably wasn’t the apology I was hoping for, I asked, “By what?”

“You.”

 _That’s fucking rich._ “You’re the one doing social experiments.” My voice had acquired a certain bite over time.

He turned. “Did you wonder about their purpose?”

“I don’t have to. You’re testing my tensile strength, seeing if I’ll break.”

“And you haven’t.”

“I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to.”

“You acquiesced, only because I didn’t give you much choice.”

“I could have kicked you out in the snow.”

“Instead you chose to allow each transgression, even while you grew steadfastly more isolated,” he said. “An odd contradiction.”

“Not for me.”

His eyes went back to the snow. “I am concerned about you, Will.”

“You’ve been looking pretty chipper lately.”

“Momentary gratification. Anticipatory.”

“Anticipating what?”

“That you would eventually give in and accept the changes without irritation, or that you would snap and send me on my way.”

Hannibal didn’t seem to grasp the concepts of basic human interaction or conflict resolution, because if this was an apology it sure sounded like a bad one.

“I wanted to see the effects firsthand,” he continued.

“Effects of what?” He also didn’t seem to grasp the concept of a complete answer.

“Stress on your wellbeing. I believed if I could manipulate your environment I would be able to push you to a discernible breaking point. You proved more stubborn than I hoped,” he said, mouth sagging with disappointment.

“And?”

“You never complained, simply bore the lot with grudging tolerance.”

Epiphany struck. _It’s a microcosm. Son of a bitch._ “You were trying to fix me?” It made a kind of twisted sense. He had meant to force acceptance or force belligerence, in the hopes it would produce the same reaction regarding my cases. Accept the empathic gift, or quit the FBI. I had been straddling the middle, uncomfortably courting a third option for the longest time. It wasn’t a bad plan, and even as I thought that I felt my pent-up anger dissipate.

“A lofty goal, I admit. Entirely too ambitious, even for myself,” he smiled. “In times of crisis you draw inward, counterproductive to both your wellbeing and the wellbeing of those who would try to help.”

His words didn’t raise any sadness or pity, rather familiarity.

“Could I say the same of you?” I ventured.

“You could.”

Hannibal paused to construct his next sentence.

“I regret my actions, Will.”

“No you don’t,” I replied. “You… _dislike_ that my respect for you has gone down several rungs over the past few weeks because of things you did. That’s not the same thing as regretting you did them in the first place.”

Impassive stone implied that I hit the nail on the head.

“Now that you know I can’t be fixed, I’d appreciate it if you stopped fucking up my house.”

He nodded in agreement, not breaking eye contact.

I was about to suggest that maybe he find healthier ways to exercise authority over others, before I realized that the suggestion reeked of hypocrisy.

“Would you like me to return your house to its old state?” He studied me carefully. I received the distinct impression I was being tested again.

“I’ll fix it when you leave. Or I won’t. I doubt I’ll be able to put everything back to normal.”

His mouth curled into a smile.

 

Hannibal started to spend more time than ever in his special attic space. The few times I went up to check on him, he was sitting by the window or lounging on the sofa in human form, and lest I forget he was part cat, each time I found him in increasingly absurd positions. Draped backward over the side, upside-down, curled up in a ball. He wasted away fourteen hours a day, on average, just sleeping.

I concluded he was bored, now that I had put a stop to his purposeful “re-organizing”. I could abide a bored werecat if he wasn’t ruining all my stuff.

Curiously, his presence hadn’t deteriorated in the lower level of the house. I felt his influence regardless of where he lay for the majority of the day. At first this confounded me, then it sort of melted into that treacherous concept - _normalcy_.

I had to admit, Hannibal knew how to organize a house. So I kept everything were he left it while he gave me space to work. Somehow, we reached a state of symbiosis.

My dreams changed. The panther vanished and in its place burned a bright, hot fire. Orange flames consumed my consciousness and woke me, nightly, in a pool of sweat and tangled blankets, coughing as if smoke lingered in my lungs. One night I fell wholly out of bed and bruised my shoulder. Another night I leapt out, not yet awake, convinced the house was on fire and trying to make my way to the door. A misplaced armchair took me down to the floor and my dogs gave me bemused looks.

And then came a nightmare so vivid and visceral that I woke screaming, ducking between furniture to run out the door and fling myself into the snow.

I lay there, half-numb and still burning, staring at the hangnail moon, waiting for sleep or worse. Bizarrely, neither arrived. I felt warm arms pull me up. Hannibal drew me close to his chest and carried me back in the house. His robe felt like velvet.

He didn’t say anything; in retrospect, I suspect he didn’t know how to offer any words of comfort. I was inconsolable.

I waited for the sun to rise before I took a cold shower. All the while, from the small hours of the morning until dawn, Hannibal stood by the door like a sentinel, immovable and alert. For once it felt safe to turn my back on him.

I put my head under the onslaught of the water for a solid minute before stepping back out. Hannibal had remained by the door.

Silently, I considered his motives. Perhaps he fancied himself my protector. Even that seemed too selfless for a narcissist; he would have asked for some gratitude or reciprocation. He had asked for neither and indeed hadn’t said anything in the past four hours.

There was one exception to the narcissist’s tenet of self-aggrandizement, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.

Unless it was.

I cocked my head at him, much the same way he did at me, and traveled down the path of thought out of sheer curiosity.

The one exception to the rule wasn’t actually an exception; it was in line with the diagnosis, but didn’t present in all narcissists. It could explain Hannibal’s behavior - why he had suddenly become my white knight after weeks of self-imposed solitude. Why he had stopped conducting experiments simply because I asked, as if he cared about my input, about my wellbeing, as if he valued me as an equal - or as a partner.

_No. No, I can’t believe that right now. Maybe, just maybe I’m right, but I’m going to pretend I’m wrong until I’m proven otherwise._

Because even if he did carry some kind of tumorous, vestigial affection for me, there was no chance he would act this chivalrously about it. There had to be another reason. I shook my dripping head and went for an aspirin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be working on NaNoWriMo for the next month, and course work has picked up considerably, so updates will be far between after this; apologies.


	7. Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the fluffy shit I was born to write.   
> God this is so stupidly self-indulgent...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's play a game called "find the 30 Rock reference".

On certain days I would have given anything to be wrong. I experienced a long string of days like those after the nightmare.

I wanted there to be another reason for Hannibal’s strange behavior, but there was nothing. Gentle, yellow-eyed glances followed me everywhere, but he never reached out; probably afraid he’d break me, or that I would rebuke him. I could’ve smashed my head into a wall for all the good thinking about that did me. The quest for another reason drove me to the brink of paranoia before I reigned in my mind and decided, infuriated, to quit.

I settled for blatant, routine denial.

My mind, unfortunately, had other plans.

Completely against my will, I began to see him in a more favorable light; as if infatuation had ever redeemed anyone, much less a psychopath.

I occupied myself with introspection, not an uncommon hobby, but from a less objective angle than usual. I assumed Hannibal’s perspective. Or at least I tried to - I didn’t get very far before I felt the uncomfortable desire to stab a student in the jugular for asking a question I had addressed three times that class. I had to put down my pen and physically breathe before returning to the lesson.

Needless to say Hannibal had permeated every small part of my life, including my mind.

In poorly-disguised desperation, I turned to the root of narcissism: the myth itself. A beauteous, arrogant hunter from Thespiae, Narcissus bore a special curse at the hands of the vengeful minor goddess Nemesis. In defense of the nymph, Echo, whom Narcissus had spurned, Nemesis gave him a fitting punishment: he literally fell in love with his own reflection.

If anything, Narcissus could only ever appreciate someone exactly like himself; even Echo, cursed to parrot other people’s words forever, couldn’t catch his attention.

I was nothing like Hannibal.

Probably a good thing, too; Narcissus drowned in a pond because he loved himself too much.

 

I found my copy of _Inferno_ , in a perpetual state of dogeared disrepair, on the kitchen table. I had annotated it many times before, but I saw a new hand had added to the pages in curling, calligraphic font. Hannibal framed his annotations like a discourse in a response to mine. Where we disagreed he was polite and compelling; where we agreed, little scrawled “fascinating”s and “well put”s, I felt a jolt, as if I had impressed a peer. The simple discovery floored me. All I could think was:

_Motherfucker knows his Dante._

He also knew me.

Both of us alone, both perceptive, and, assuming he didn’t get the annotations from SparkNotes, intelligent; that much seemed obvious. Both of us also liked to use pretentious, extended metaphors (though I kept mine locked in my head).

Was that enough for a narcissist of his capacity?

What even qualified as “enough like himself” to satisfy Hannibal’s appetite? That much was unclear to me.

Days passed. Hannibal offered to teach me how to make some unpronounceable French thing and I declined. It was a knee-jerk reaction and I hesitated for a moment, but Hannibal had already cataloged it and drawn his own conclusions.

That didn’t stop him from asking again a day later. I took a second to consider it this time, and nodded. I was convinced he’d use it as an excuse to show me how to properly cut something, look critically over my shoulder, try to micromanage every movement until he finally grew frustrated enough to do it himself. I did _not_ expect him to stand off to the side, cross his arms, and give me a smile that I can only describe as worshipful.

“I know how to cut a potato,” I grumbled. I succeeded in sounding displeased.

“I never said you couldn’t.”

“You’re giving me a proud look, though, so you can’t have had too much hope.”

“I’ve learned I mustn’t jump to conclusions when it comes to you.”

I sliced deep into my hand. The knife clattered and I held the cut, swearing. Hannibal rushed to the bathroom and returned with a small first aid kit. He grasped my hand.

There was no spark of distaste in response to the touch, but that realization came with its own surge of nervousness. Blood pulsed loud in my head.

“Maybe I really _don’t_ know how to cut a potato,” I laughed.

He wrapped my hand in a detached, business-like fashion, but his grip was delicate.

_I’m not a Ming vase, fucker, stop treating me like I’ll break if you drop me._

I couldn’t trace my impatience in that one, couldn’t figure out why this upset me.

_Hey, higher brain, why do you want Hannibal to be rougher with me?_

Higher brain didn’t have an answer.

Hannibal taped the bandage. “Good as new,” he said, and kissed it lightly, as a knight would. Then he looked up.

_Oh fuck._

When had those eyes gone from piss to gold?

_Fuck._

When had those honest little smiles stopped cutting icy irritation in my blood?

When had they become so spare and treasured?

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…_

All this time analyzing Hannibal’s motives and I had never once thought to ask myself about my own. I stood silent for what felt like hours.

How to describe looking at his face, fully lit with concern, for the first time? It was as if a sculptor had been carving a gargoyle on a cathedral and, halfway through, changed his mind and attempted to create an angelic figure from the existing rock face. The effect was disarming.

“Will, are you alright?”

_MOTHERFUCKER, I JUST CALLED YOU AN ANGEL IN MY HEAD. I AM SO FAR FROM “ALRIGHT” I MIGHT AS WELL BE IN THE HOURGLASS NEBULA._

“Will, what’s wrong?” The concern sounded genuine, which made it immeasurably worse. I only had half an answer to his question, and I couldn’t process the other half with any clarity while his stupid face looked like that.

“I have to go.”

Speaking an incomplete answer would be like trying to birth half a child. I had to finish the idea far away from him.

“Where?”

_ANYWHERE BUT HERE._

“School. I-I left something at school.”

I edged out of the kitchen without looking at his face again.

 

My forehead was red from banging it on the desk. A sidelong glance at my phone told me Hannibal had texted three times, virtually unheard of the entire time we’d known each other. I hit my head on the desk again. I couldn’t tell him what I didn’t know.

I had half an answer to the problem - Hannibal’s half. But what the hell did _I_ think of all this?

Easy answer? _I don’t like men._

Exception to all the known rules of my universe? _I like Hannibal. Some-fucking-how… There is literally no other reason I would call him a fallen angel unless I was comparing him to Lucifer._

Lucifer had been the most beautiful angel; the comparison was apt. But if Hannibal was Lucifer, who did that make me? Dante, Virgil, or one of the souls trapped in the beast’s mouth?

I groaned.

“Professor?”

I looked up. It was a frightened student holding out a stack of paper. “Yes?”

“I-I heard you were in the building. M-my essay is a little late,” she said.

“No problem,” I said and took it. I had said five pages; this was over ten. I frowned.

“I’m sorry it’s so long,” she offered. I waved the apology away and let my head fall to the desk again.

“Professor, are you-”

“No, I’m not alright,” I grumbled into the wood. I sighed and sat up. “Here’s a behavioral analysis question, Foster: can you be gay for just one person?”

She floundered for a second, then gave a noncommittal shrug, “If you’re a lady and you meet Ellen?”

I appraised the answer.

“My version of Ellen is a psychopathic cat,” I said flatly.

Her eyes flickered to the ceiling in confusion.

“Nevermind.”

My confused student left.

_Can’t wait to hear that one get passed around._

“I hate this. I hate this.”

_Things could be worse. I could’ve fallen in love with a serial killer. Or a really boring teacher. Or someone who hated dogs._

“Yeah, I sure dodged a fucking bullet,” I muttered sarcastically.

Then I realized that I had just used the words “fallen in love” unironically and smashed my head down again.

_I am so fucked._

 

I paced back and forth on the porch. I managed ten revolutions before Hannibal opened the door and poked his head out.

“Will!” he said in surprise. “Come inside, it’s freezing!”

I shook my head and kept pacing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong I’m just thinking,” I snapped. “I do that occasionally.”

He blinked.

“I’m trying to formulate something halfway eloquent,” I explained. “I’ll come in when I’m done.”

His reptile brain processed my words and he retreated inside. No offense taken, no attempt made to mollify. I reeled.

_That’s Hannibal all right. Taking me at my worst._

I put my head in hands and, blindly, kept pacing. He would wait; he had already waited weeks, what was a few more minutes? Hannibal was far more patient than me; as if putting up with all my empathic baggage wasn’t proof enough.

I burst into the house, ready or not. He sampled one of his stupid beef broths and faced me.

“I can’t get you out of my head.” _There’s my one allowed cliche._

“I wouldn’t think so.”

“For some reason your egomania has stopped offending me on a personal level.”

Fucking hell it was like I’d spouted a love sonnet judging by the smile he gave me.

“Right now I’m very confused.”

“I would be worried if you weren’t.”

“I’ve never “been” with a man, or a psychopath, or someone who moonlights as a cat-”

“-Then by all means, I am a trifecta-”

“Hannibal, I need to ask you something and I’d like an honest answer. No half-truths, no metaphors.”

He nodded like it was the simplest request in the world.

“What do you see in me?” I asked.

He waited, assuming I would continue.

“Because if you see me as a reflection of yourself, this won’t end well. I’m not you, as much as you’d like me to be. That expectation would weigh on me - change me. I’d feel the pressure to act more like you every day, and I can’t see myself bearing that burden. I’d shatter first.”

“And I would have you, shards and all.”

Until that point his affection had been a heavily supported theory, rather than starch fact; his sudden shift into blatant honesty robbed me of words for a moment.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are just as beautiful broken as you are whole.”

Weeks ago I asked Hannibal why he wanted to find the arsonist and his answer catalyzed every ounce of adrenaline in my body. The same instinct to run coursed through me just then - the need to flee from this connection; the primal fear of the unknown. Because Hannibal’s feelings were unknown, in scope and scale and depth and all those other words that reminded me of an iceberg floating towards me.

“No one’s ever said that to me before.”

And I knew, like I knew he was dangerous, like I knew he was a fucking psychopath, that he had never said anything like that to anyone, and had never meant it. I clung to some desperate hope that he didn’t mean it, that this was more manipulation.

“What do I see in you?” Hannibal echoed. “A man who wears his heart on his sleeve because he doesn’t know any other way to live, hidden away in this place yet still exposed to the elements. I would like to hold that heart in my hands and shield it from another’s influence.”

“You would hurt it just to watch it heal.”

The tilt of his head and the twitch of his lips told me all I needed to know. “Yes.”

My heart broke; it dissolved; it ripped itself to shreds and I wanted him to reach into my chest cavity and put them back together.

“May I turn the question on you?”

My throat clicked. I chose my words carefully.

“I don’t know if I want you despite your reptile brain or because of it,” I said. “That’s why I have to be careful. I don’t think you’d hurt me, unless I tried to leave. That scares me. What scares me more is that I think you’d let me hurt you.”

“I would accept anything you gave me.”

_Please stop being honest._

“So if we’re going to do this it’s going to be cordial and slow-moving, damn it.”

A small, snake-like twist of his head, and I was satisfied he understood me.

“I am nothing if not cordial,” he said, taking a step forward.

I narrowed my eyes. “Hannibal,” I warned. He stopped, left barely enough room for me to breathe.

“But I’ve discovered I’m rather good at pushing those boundaries of yours, Will.” Those damned eyes dropped to my lips as he smiled.

“Hannib-”

I had been about to say something really fucking clever, but it got lost in the firestorm that flared up when he closed the distance between us. His mouth slid gently over mine.

First, mild panic. Then, pure shock at how fast the lower half of my body jumped onboard. Holy shit, it was the Fourth of fucking July - a veritable explosion of synapses fried my brain and lit my skin on fire. When he didn’t encounter resistance, Hannibal leaned farther forward, putting a hand under my jaw.

I reached up and gave a light push on his shoulders. He pulled back abruptly to study me, not concerned but cautious.

“Slow,” I reminded him while my head recovered. Content that he’d pushed me far enough for the day, he smiled and returned to his station.

_Christ al-fucking-mighty I don’t think I’ll ever recover from that. Dante. Please tell me I’m Dante and that I can still get out of this hellhole of a situation._


End file.
